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Expat Life In Paris Versus In Panama

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Jul 28, 2010
in Retirement/Living
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What I Miss About Panama

This month in Paris, friends we’ve seen have asked, “Will it be hard to return to Panama? I mean, come on, be honest. Don’t you prefer Paris?”

Yes, in many ways. But I’m also finding myself missing things about Panama.

I miss, for example, the help around the house that we can afford in Panama City. We pay Olga, our full-time housekeeper, top dollar. That’s US$350 per month. For this, Olga runs our household. Not only are the dishes done, the furniture dusted, and the floors polished, but, if Lief needs a shirt ironed, he asks Olga.

If Jack’s white sneakers come home from his day in the park brown with mud, Olga whisks them off his feet and into a bucket of bleach before he’s made it through the front door. I don’t worry that the plants will be watered or that the refrigerator repairman will be met. I know Olga’s on it.

When we arrived in Paris this month, I asked around for a recommendation for someone to come to the apartment to help with the cleaning. I knew I couldn’t afford full-time help in this city, but I hoped to arrange for someone to come two or three hours at a time twice a week.

For this kind of help, you’ll pay from 10 to 50 euro per hour. And you’ll want to be on hand while they’re in your home, to give detailed instructions, task by task, and to review the results. It’ll seem (in my experience) that it’d be easier to do the work yourself.

Which is what I’ve been doing. And, boy, do I miss Olga.

I also miss the space of our 3,500-square-foot home with its shaded back garden. Our 112-square-meter apartment is charming, historic, and quintessentially Parisian. It’s also, I have to admit, moving from cozy to cramped the longer our family of five is co-habitating here.

Finally, I miss the easy access to the beach we enjoy in Panama City. Any weekend the whim strikes, we can take off for a day or two of sand and sea.

Of course, back in Panama, I’ll miss things about Paris.

I enjoy both places. And perhaps what I enjoy most is the contrast.

The change of scenery. The change of climate. The changing view outside our bedroom window.

In both places now, we feel settled and at home. We have friends, routines, habits, favorite restaurants…

This, then, is our long-term retirement plan, to divide our time among a handful of places that appeal to us and that, important to us, provide constant contrast.

Eventually, when we’re able to flip this switch in full, we’ll spend a few months each year here in Paris, a few months each year in Panama, and a few months each year in Istria, Croatia, another part of the world that has captured our imaginations and our hearts and where we’ve begun to create connections.

The remaining few months of the year? They’re up for grabs at this point. We’re thinking Buenos Aires…

Kathleen Peddicord

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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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